Rob Ford Comes Out On Top (Again) at Tonight's Debate in Toronto

You want to know one of the signs that Rob Ford is going to be re-elected?

Because real people, not the Toronto Star and Globe and Mail pseudo-intellectuals whose faces have a permanent sneer caused in part by the bugs up their asses that are eating their way up to their brains, but real people like him.

And do you know how you can tell that? Because when he's out in public, real people approach him and are happy to see him. That stands in stark contrast to Olivia Chow, whose handlers have to work hard at the difficult task of corralling anyone willing to have their picture taken with her. It's then Chow, not the accessory in the photo, that sends out those photos through social media to try to create the illusion that she is popular.

Part of Ford's success is that is talks to people instead of down to them, as his opponents do.

I watched some of the mayoral debate tonight. The four challengers were packed together and literally sat apart from Ford. But it was the mayor who again topped his rivals, even winning over an audience in a part of town that is less attuned to him than the outer suburbs. Chow, as usual, came off as an out-of-touch, confused halfwit totally in the pockets of the municipal unions. She repeated her idiotic line about not being willing to extend the successful privatization of garbage that Torontonians west of Yonge Street enjoy to the city on the east side of that dividing line. Her fatuous reasoning is that she wants competition. But for anyone who isn't an idiot, competition would mean allowing all qualified competitors to compete. For Chow that means that her civic union buddies have the exclusive right to keep the east side of Yonge Street.

John Tory, without actually saying it in those words, was essentially trying to sell the unconvincing narrative that he's Rob Ford without the crack. But Tory, an honest, decent guy, is also Rob Ford without the determination to get things done. Tory is an inveterate compromiser likely to compromise the city to a standstill and has no real voter base, no charisma, and probably lacks the ability to get elected.

Frankly, I don't even know why David Soknacki and Karen Stintz are still in the race, unless they're being paid by Rob Ford to bleed votes away from Tory and Chow.

"Sock Puppet" Soknacki is a leftie's idea of what they would like a conservative to be, meaning he's basically useless to everyone. Tonight he tried to defend his record as David Miller's Budget Chief. Now those four words, "David Miller's Budget Chief," are enough reason for the average Torontonian to want never to see Soknacki hold elected office again.

As far as Karen Stintz's performance goes, I think she should ask whoever she paid $4500 of taxpayers' money for voice lessons to refund it back to the City budget. She is a terrible, artificial-sounding public speaker. Not quite as artificial as Chow, I'll grant you, but that's like saying vomit is nicer smelling than feces. Stintz had to remind the voters of her name, which was probably a waste of time, since if her name is still on the ballot come October, no one will pay any attention to it then either.

Ford was the only candidate who was convincing about being willing to go all out to make sure taxpayers aren't reamed by the unions and special interests like we were under David Miller. There's another city union contract coming up next year.  Ford got a great deal for the City with the last one and it was fair to the City's unionized workers. No one, and I mean no one, even among Ford's enemies, believes that anyone but he would have been able to strike that deal. And no one really believes that any of Ford's challengers would be able to strike another like it.

So for those people who thought the circus might be leaving town soon,  you might want to bear down, because there's a great chance you'll be looking at Ford more years.